There's more to life than just London," said Nightingale. "People keep saying that," I said. "But I've never actually seen any proof. - Ben Aaronovitch

“They’re all so ridiculously young,” said Nightingale.
“They” were mostly Police Staff, what we’re not supposed to call civilian workers any more—analysts and data entry specialists—who’d got the boot when the government decided that in the light of an increased security threat what London needed was a smaller police force.

Nightingale says that conspiracies of silence are the only kind of conspiracies that stand the test of time.

With a rich history like that there was nothing to be done except flatten it and replace it with a shopping arcade designed in the who-the-fuck-cares school of retail architecture. The result was a two-story warehouse with a flat roof designed to maximise floor space and nothing else.